Mixed day for financials in quiet trade

Dublin report: It was a flat Friday on the stock exchange as the spectre of the school mid-term break loomed for parents and traders alike. A quiet day for the Iseq picked up steam as it went along and the index eventually finished up 11.97.

Among the financials, AIB fell seven cents to €21.18 and Irish Life & Permanent slipped 30 cents to €19, a drop of 1.5 per cent.

It was a better day for Bank of Ireland, which climbed 10 cents to €15.50, and Anglo-Irish Bank, which also added 10 cents to finish at €14.10 with about three million shares in the stock changing hands. Building materials group CRH closed up 15 cents at €27.45, a climb of more than half a per cent.

The stock was a beneficiary of a good day globally for construction stocks, as Mexican company Cemex made an offer on Australian company Rinker Group, a deal that would create one of the world's largest building materials companies.

DCC also did well yesterday, climbing 75 cents to €21.60, a rise of 3.6 per cent. Drinks group C&C was another in good shape, rising by more than 2 per cent to finish on €13.02, up 27 cents. Irish Estates finished up seven cents at €4.75, with a block of shares trading at that price.

Troubled luxury goods company Waterford Wedgwood enjoyed significant levels of trading and was up 5.7 per cent on the day as people bought into the idea that the worst might be behind the company.

Among the food companies, Kerry Group fell 13 cents and closed at €19.07, while IAWS also fell 13 cents to finish the day at €17.47. Glanbia added two cents to close at €2.82.

It was a relatively quiet day in the airline takeover battle for Ryanair, which shed three cents to land on €8.85, while Aer Lingus slipped two cents to €2.83.